Leonard David reports that "the Phoenix lander team is going forward with turning on the spacecraft’s microphone."

I'm working on finding out more details. (For instance, I want to know if this also means they'll get to use the camera itself, maybe get a different perspective on Holy Cow, if the camera's pointing the right way.) In the meantime, enjoy hearing what Bill Nye and others would sound like on Mars before they asphyxiated.

That's fantastic news! Being able to play kids the sound of the wind blowing on Mars would be brilliant! As you so eloquently put it, "Yay!"

Having said that... and without wanting to blow on anyone's chips here ... is this a sign that the Phoenix team is maybe sensing that the sand is really rushing through the hourglass now, and the time has come to start trying cool and unusual things..?

is this a sign that the Phoenix team is maybe sensing that the sand is really rushing through the hourglass now, and the time has come to start trying cool and unusual things..?

It's probably the realization that at this point, turning MARDI on can't jeopardize the success of the mission anymore so they might as well do it. I don't see it as running against the clock. I'm glad they decided to turn it on, was hoping it would happen sometime during the extended mission.

I wonder if it will be sensitive enough to hear wind directly? Maybe some cavity somewhere on Phoenix will resonate in the wind and make a whistle or hum? Maybe the sound of the solar arrays flapping in the wind would be easier to hear, if it could carry directly through the body of Phoenix?

It's hard to know what, if anything, it'll hear; it was intended to listen to descent noises (whoosh and all that), so is probably pretty insensitive to the level of sound that currently prevails at the landing site -- but we'll see. We also have to see if it still works or not. So -- hope, but don't expect, to hear anything!

OK, here's a challenge for someone(s) with a facility for 3D visualization. The question is, what would MARDI be looking at if it took an image right now? More specifically, could it see any of the ice patches in Holy Cow? Attached is an image of the underside of the lander, in which you can see MARDI (it's the thing covered with a blue cover, actually a glove, just like the glove the technician is wearing!) I've tried to puzzle it out but am afraid of errors and am hoping a couple of people here can try to figure it out independently. Also relevant: its FOV is 66 degrees.

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